A senior Democratic lawmaker with knowledge of some of the US government’s most secretive operations said he has “deep concerns” about some of the Central Intelligence Agency’s activities.
THE written letter of two lines by Sen. Ron Wyden, the longest-serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, does not reveal the nature of the CIA’s activities or the senator’s specific concerns. But the letter follows a pattern in recent years of Wyden publicly hinting at wrongdoing or wrongdoing within the federal government, sometimes referred to as the “Wyden siren.”
In a statement (via Dustin Volz of the Wall Street Journal), the CIA said it was “ironic but not surprising that Senator Wyden is displeased,” calling it “an honorable mention.”
When reached by TechCrunch, a spokesperson for Wyden’s staff was unable to comment as the matter was confidential.
Tasked with overseeing the intelligence community, Wyden is one of the few lawmakers allowed to read highly classified information about ongoing government surveillance, including cyber operations and other intelligence. But because the programs are top secret, Wyden is not allowed to share details of what he knows with anyone else, including most other lawmakers, except for a small security-cleared Senate staff.
As a result, Wyden, a noted privacy hawk, has become one of the few key members of Congress whose infrequent but outspoken words on intelligence and surveillance issues are closely watched by civil liberties groups.
In recent years, Wyden has subtly sounded the alarm on several occasions in which he has interpreted a secret decision or intelligence-gathering method as illegal or unconstitutional.
In 2011, Wyden said the US government was relying on a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act, which he said—without disclosing the nature of his concerns—created a “gap between what the public believes the law says and what the American government secretly believes the law says.”
Two years later, then-NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was relying on its secret interpretation of the Patriot Act to force US phone companies, including Verizon, to hand over the call records of hundreds of millions of Americans on an ongoing basis.
Since then, Wyden has been sounding the alarm about how the US government collects the content of people’s communications; revealed that the Justice Department had barred Apple and Google from disclosing that federal authorities were secretly requesting the content of their customers’ push notifications. and said that unclassified report which CISA has refused to release contains “shocking details” about the national security threats facing US telephone companies.
As noted by Techdirt’s Mike Masnickwe may not yet know why Wyden blew the whistle on CIA activities, but every time Wyden warned, he was also vindicated.
